dean’s year end list

The Big Sleep & Dean’s Year End List

It’s that time again as the year winds down to its end.  2014, with only 7 live appearances, can be seen as, “the year we took a break.” Yes, we took it slow as newest member/collaborator, Andy Soto returned to Paris, France and long-time member Bobby Lee departed while I concentrated on my new full-time day job: Fatherhood. I should also mention that we canned our annual East Coast tour in Autumn of 2014 (with my apologies to the CMJ Music Marathon and TWM/iM Fest). Meanwhile, Betty Dimo and myself kept it alive as a three-piece by enlisting drummer extraordinaire, Johnny Rowe and by continuing to write and rehearse new material. More on that later…

…anyway. As always, here is the list (5th annual!) of albums I purchased on vinyl with the 2014 time-stamp:

Alvvays: Alvvays
The War on Drugs: Lost in the Dream
Swans: To be Kind

And as always, this list does not include the older and records and reissues I purchased in 2014!

In a lot of ways it was an encouraging year especially when a band like Swans can still release relevant and mind blowing records and a band like The War on Drugs can climb to the pinnacle of musical success in this modern landscape (read: sad future).

Expect to hear new music from us in 2015. We have been working on it. In fact, we have booked the studio and will be recording (demoing) 4 or 5 new songs this coming Monday. You won’t hear these demos. Maybe as bonus tracks sometime in the far future. The only way to hear these new songs right now is to come out to future shows. I’ll be sure to post some pictures here and on our instagram.

Happy Holidays!
-dean

Happy Holidays – Dean’s Year End List

My answer to a question in a recent online interview pretty much sums up what we’re up to right now:

We released a new full length album called Darker Lights, completed an East Coast tour, played CMJ music festival and released a video for our latest single, “The Hedonist.” Now that it’s Winter we’re taking a break from playing live and concentrating on more ethereal means of promotion – like more videos and interviews like this! I think the live shows will start up in earnest again in Spring of 2014 after the album’s been out there and germinating for a bit. That’s the great thing about music it lives in the æther and there are so many ways of discovering it beyond going to live shows. Going to live shows is still the best, but going to your favourite record store, reading zines or even randomly surfing places like youtube, bandcamp or rdio are great ways to find new music.

###

In other news:

Darker Lights is admittedly our least radio-friendly album to date and so we are especially appreciative of all the radio support we received this past year.

Listen for our our song “Poor City” on CBC Radio 3.  Those musical early-adopters found the very deep cut  (track 8 on Darker Lights) and liked it enough to add it to rotation without any push from our record label or anything.  What does it mean?  CBC Radio 3 is curated by folks who actually listen to entire albums, that’s what!  That’s refreshing news to me.  All in all I would like to send out a special thank you to our supporters at CBC Radio3.  “The Hedonist,” charted in their top 30 chart (The R3-30, determined by listener votes) for 8 consecutive weeks.  Darker Lights was nominated for a prestigious Bucky Award for best artwork (D. Kleiser) and “The Hedonist” was named #19 of the top 103 songs of 2013.

You can listen to CBC Radio3 throughout North America on Sirius XM radio (ch. 162) and anywhere on the world online.  Meanwhile, we’ll be working on a new music video for our next single (which is not “Poor City”,” BTW).

We would also like to thank all our  friends and supporters at Canadian Campus Radio (nation-wide) especially CJAM, CIUT, CRFE, CKDU,  CHMR, CIOI, CFOU, CIVL, CFMH, CFMU, CAPR, CHSR, CILU, Radio Laurier, CFBX, CFCR, CFMH, CJUM, our friends and supporters at Sirius XM radio, The Verge and ICEBERG radio and all the independently-minded FM stations across this country who gave us a feature or a spin (especially Indie88, Live 88.5, The Wolf Regina, The Wolf Nanaimo, CIFM , and Rock95)  – enough to keep us in the charts for many weeks. I’m sure we’ve missed a bunch of supporters but we thank you all the same!

Extra year-end kudos to Cara and Ashley at With A Bullet, Jonas and Maude at Edvinsson and all at Sparks and Universal Music Canada.

We would also like to send a big shout out to David Kleiser (album art design) and Kerry Shaw (band photos and videos) for their help on the visual end of things.

###

And now for the 4th annual Year End List. These are vinyl albums I purchased that were released in 2013.  For several reasons (not all of them musical) 2013 was a relatively slow record-buying year for me. I think I purchased more used classic vinyl and online/digital music in 2013 (which I don’t include on this list). Hopefully, 2014 will prove a better year.  Anyway, here it is (in no particular order):

Silence Yourself – Savages
Trouble Will Find Me – The National
m.b.v. – My Bloody Valentine
Until In Excess, Imperceptible UFO – The Besnard Lakes

I can’t believe I haven’t grabbed Fade Out by Dog Day! I need to grab that one before 2013 ends!!!

Happy Holidays!

Holiday Sabbatical and Dean’s Year End List

Hi,

It’s the Holiday Season and while most bands work feverishly during these weeks, we here in PAPERMAPS have decided to take a 3-week sabbatical. We’ll be reconvening in January and plan to play our hometown  February 7 at one of our favorite venues in town (hint, it has the word “shoe” in its name – more details and to come).  Since distilling the lineup down to Betty, Bobby and myself, we’ve been working on new material with hopes of a summertime 2013 release and tour(s). Our secondary hope is to preview much of that new material at our February 7 show. Let’s keep the fingers crossed…

Every year I do a little “year end” list of vinyl albums that I purchased that year – not counting records from previous years, oldies or classic albums, etc., which I shamefully buy a lot of…As always, some of these records were the soundtrack of my year, while others collected dust…but something convinced me to buy them…Here they are in no particular order:

Tender New Signs – Tamaryn
Crayon Wars – Wendy Versus (ok, I played on this album, but it did come out on vinyl)
Self-Titled – Paper Beat Scissors
Clear Moon – Mount Eerie
Lowbanks – From East to Exit (ok, I produced this…but it came out on vinyl)
The Only Place – Best Coast
Worship – A Place to Bury Strangers
Wild Peace – Echo Lake
Self-Titled – Metz
Self-Titled – VISTAVISON (I also produced this one, but it’s out on vinyl now and one of my faves)

And there you have it…the 4th annual “Dean’s Year End List.”

Not counted here, but given honorable mention is the seminal post-rock/neo-jazz band, Talk Talk and their 2012 reissued/remastered Spirit of Eden.

Cheers and Happy Holidays,

-dean